WordPress is Most Popular Blog Software

A recent survey by Pingdom found that 48 of the most popular blogs are created with WordPress, up from 32 in 2009.  In order the blog platforms by percent of sites using the software are:

• 48 WordPress
• 14 Custom
• 7 Movable type
• 6 Drupal
• 5 Gawker
• 4 Blogsmith
• 2 Typepad
• 2 Blogger

Where does your blog/web software fall in this list?   The article says, “It’s also interesting to see that our findings are not far off compared to what Technorati found in its State of the Blogosphere 2011 report. In it, Technorati found that 51% of blogs in the world use WordPress.”  The article contains a list of the top 100 blogs and the software platform used by each.

If you are not using WordPress for your blog or website you are probably making a mistake.  If you are paying somebody big bucks to create a custom site for you then you are really wasting a ton of money.

I started using WordPress in the fall of 2009.  It is an incredible program and it’s free.  I now have 11 websites/blogs (counting this one) that I created using WordPress.  I use WordPress to create pure blog sites and sites that are traditional websites that may or may not have a blog.  Here are the reasons I love WordPress and recommend it:

• It’s free.  However there are some themes and plugins that you must buy to use, but the vast majority of themes and plugins are free.

• It’s very easy to use.  I can teach somebody in ten minutes how to add content (posts and pages) to a WordPress blog or site.

• It’s very powerful.  For some reason I do not understand people write add-in features and give them away for free to anybody who uses WordPress.  The two most common types of freebies are: (1) themes, and (2) plugins.  A theme is the look and feel of a blog or site.  WordPress comes with a default theme, but you can select from thousands of free themes and download and active a them in a matter of seconds.  When you active a theme, it instantly changes the look and feel of your site.  I use a theme for all of my sites called “Atahualpa,” one of the most popular free themes.  A plugin is a WordPress software add on that adds a new feature to your site.  You do not have to spend time creating code to make your site do what you want.  Instead, you search for a theme you want then click on the Install icon and the plugin then downloads and installs on your WordPress site.  For example, if you want a feature that automatically makes a sitemap of your site and uploads it to Google or if you want to have a message list serve on your site, all you need to do is decide which plugin you want, install and configure it and your WordPress site has those new features in a matter of minutes.

Do yourself a favor and switch to WordPress or create a WordPress site if you do not have a blog or a website.  The first step is go to www.lynda.com.  Pay to watch one of its how to videos on using WordPress version 3, the latest version.  If you learn WordPress and have a WordPress blog or website you can save tons of money and frustration by avoiding the need to pay a consultant.